creating competitive advantage philip kotler & gary armstrong
TRANSCRIPT
Creating Competitive Advantage
Philip Kotler & Gary Armstrong
An advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either through lower prices or by providing more benefits that justify higher prices.
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Competitive Advantage
the process of identifying key competitors; assessing their objectives, strategies, strengths and weaknesses, and reaction patterns; and selecting which competitors to attack or avoid.
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Competitor Analysis
Identifying CompetitorsCompetitors can include:
• All firms making the same product or class of products
• All firms making products that supply the same service
• All firms competing for the same consumer dollars
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Competitor Analysis
Identifying Competitors• Competitor myopia refers to a firm focusing on what it
considers to be its direct competition and not being aware of indirect or new competitors.
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Competitor Analysis
Identifying Competitors• Industry point of view refers to competitors within the
same industry.• Market point of view refers to competitors trying to
satisfy the same customer need or build relationships with the same customer group.
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Competitor Analysis
Identifying Competitors• The market point of view is considered to provide a
broader set of actual and potential competitors, and a competitor map illustrates the steps buyers take in obtaining the product.
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Competitor Analysis
Identifying Competitors• A competitor map highlights both competitive
opportunities and challenges facing the firm.• Center is the list of consumer activities• First outer ring lists main competitors• Second outer ring lists indirect competitors
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Competitor Analysis
Assessing Competitors• Competitor’s objectives• Competitor’s strategies• Competitor’s strengths and weaknesses• Competitor’s actions and reactions
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Competitor Analysis
Determining Competitor’s ObjectivesCompetitor’s objectives include:• Profitability• Market share growth• Cash flow• Technological leadership• Service leadership
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Competitor Analysis
Identifying Competitor’s Strategies• A strategic group is a group of firms in an industry
following the same or similar strategy in a given target market.
• Competition is most intense within a strategic group• Competition among strategic groups is due to overlapping
customers and lack of perceived differentiation and expansion of one strategic group into new segments
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Competitor Analysis
Identifying Competitor’s Strategies• Companies need to understand the competitor’s ability
to deliver value to its customers• Product quality• Product features• Customer service• Pricing policy• Distribution coverage
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Competitor Analysis
• Sales force strategy
• Promotion programs
• Financial strategies
• R&D
Assessing Competitor’s Strengths and Weaknesses• Primary data• Secondary data• Personal experience• Word of mouth• Benchmarking is the comparison of the company’s products or
services to competitors or leaders in other industries to find ways to improve quality and performance.
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Competitor Analysis
Estimating Competitor’s Reactions• Marketing managers need to develop an understanding of a given
competitor’s mentality, culture, values, and way of doing business to anticipate how the competitor will react to the company’s marketing strategies.
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Competitor Analysis
Selecting Competitors to Attack and Avoid• Customer value analysis determines the benefits that target
customers value and how customers rate the relative value of various competitor’s offers.• Identification of major attributes that customers value and the
importance of these values• Assessment of the company’s and competitors’ performance on the
valued attributes
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Competitor Analysis
Close or Distant Competitors• Close competitors resemble the company the most.
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Competitor Analysis
Good or Bad CompetitorsGood competitors:
• Increase total demand
• Share costs of market and product development
• Legitimize new technologies
• Serve less attractive market segments
• Provide more product differentiation
• Lower the anti-trust risk
• Improve bargaining power versus legislators and regulators
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Competitor Analysis
Good or Bad CompetitorsBad competitors:
• Try to share rather than earn in the market
• Take large risks
• Create disruption
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Competitor Analysis
strategies that strongly position the company against competitors and that give the company the strongest possible strategic advantage.
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Competitive Marketing Strategy
Approaches to Marketing Strategy• Stages of approaches to marketing strategy include:
• Entrepreneurial marketing• Formulated marketing• Intrepreneurial marketing
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Competitive Strategy
Approaches to Marketing Strategy• Entrepreneurial marketing involves visualizing an opportunity and
constructing and implementing flexible strategies.
• Formulated marketing involves developing formal marketing strategies and following them closely.
• Intrepreneurial marketing involves the attempt to reestablish an internal entrepreneurial spirit and refresh marketing strategies and approaches.
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Competitive Strategy
Basic Competitive Strategies• Michael Porter’s four basic competitive positioning
strategies• Overall cost leadership• Differentiation• Focus• Middle-of-the-roaders
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Competitive Strategy
Basic Competitive Strategies• Overall cost leadership strategy is when a company
achieves the lowest production and distribution costs and allow it to lower its prices and gain market share.
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Competitive Strategy
Basic Competitive Strategies• Differentiation strategy is when a company concentrates
on creating a highly differentiated product line and marketing program so it comes across as an industry class leader.
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Competitive Strategy
Basic Competitive Strategies• Focus strategy is when a company focuses its effort on
serving few market segments well rather than going after the whole market.
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Competitive Strategy
Basic Competitive Strategies• Porter believed that companies that pursued a clear
strategy would achieve superior performance and that companies without a clear strategy would not succeed.
• Porter considered them to be “middle-of-the- roaders”
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Competitive Strategy
Basic Competitive Strategies• Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema suggest companies
can gain leadership positions by delivering superior value to their customers in three strategies or “value disciplines.”
• Operational excellence• Customer intimacy• Product leadership
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Competitive Strategy
Basic Competitive Strategies• Operational excellence refers to a company providing
value by leading its industry in price and convenience by reducing costs and creating a lean and efficient value delivery system.
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Competitive Strategy
Basic Competitive Strategies• Customer intimacy refers to a company providing
superior value by segmenting markets and tailoring products or services to match the needs of the targeted customers.
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Competitive Strategy
Basic Competitive Strategies• Product leadership refers to a company providing
superior value by offering a continuous stream of leading-edge products or services. Product leaders are open to new ideas and solutions and bring them quickly to the market.
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Competitive Strategy
Competitive Positions• Market leader strategy• Market challenger strategy• Market follower strategy• Market nicher strategy
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Competitive Strategy
Competitive Positions• Market leader is the firm with the largest market share
and leads the market price changes, product innovations, distribution coverage, and promotion spending.
• Market challengers are firms fighting to increase market share.
• Market followers are firms that want to hold onto their market share.
• Market nichers are firms that serve small market segments not being pursued by other firms.
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Competitive Strategy
Market Leader Strategies• Expand total demand• Protect their current market• Expand market share
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Competitive Strategy
Market Leader StrategiesProtect current market share by:
• Fixing or preventing weaknesses that provide opportunities to competitors
• Maintaining consistent prices that provide value
• Keeping strong customer relationships
• Continuous innovation
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Competitive Strategy
Market Leader StrategiesExpand market share by:
• Increasing market share in served markets, thus increasing profitability
• Producing high-quality products
• Creating good service experiences
• Building close customer relationships
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Competitive Strategy
Market Challenger Strategies• Challenge the leader with an aggressive bid for more
market share.• Play along with competitors and not rock the boat.• Second mover advantage occurs when a market follower
observes what has made the leader successful and improves on it.
• Challenges firm its own size or smaller.
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Competitive Strategy
Market Nicher Strategies• Ideal market niche is big enough to be profitable with high
growth potential and has little interest from competitors.• Key to market niching is specialization
• Market• Customer• Product• Marketing mix
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Competitive Strategy
• Companies need to continuously adapt strategies to changes in the competitive environment.
• Competitor-centered company• Customer-centered company• Market-centered company
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Balancing Customer and Competitor Orientations
• Competitor-centered company spends most of its time tracking competitor’s moves and market shares and trying to find ways to counter them.• Advantage is that the company is a fighter• Disadvantage is that the company is reactive
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Balancing Customer and Competitor Orientations
• Customer-centered company spends most of its time focusing on customer developments in designing strategies.
• Provides a better position than competitor-centered company to identify opportunities and build customer relationships.
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Balancing Customer and Competitor Orientations
• Market-centered company spends most of its time focusing on both competitor and customer developments in designing strategies.
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Balancing Customer and Competitor Orientations